Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished 5th in the Brazilian Grand prix. His teammate Kimi Raikkonen crashed heavily but fortunately was fine after that.
Sebastian Vettel:
“Obviously, today it was not ideal. In the first part of the race I span, I had some aquaplaning but I wasn’t the only one. I think it was a good recovering in the end. It was difficult to come back, and I struggled to get past [Carlos] Sainz. I don’t know why it took me a lot of laps before I really started to feel well in the car, and then it was too late.
About the duel with [Max] Verstappen, I think I was racing side by side to him and he saw me. I still had a little bit of my nose ahead. He was much faster so it was about making the corner and he got past. Not a difficult passing manoeuver, but I don’t think it was fully correct. But I wouldn’t complain about anything. I think I was not the only one who got caught out by the aquaplaning. Luckily I didn’t crash.”
Kimi Raikkonen:
“The conditions were not the easiest ones. It was very tricky. When you do many laps behind the Safety Car it gets even more difficult. It was not raining heavily, but there was a lot of standing water. The biggest problem was the aquaplaning and I got it in a place where I was not expecting it. I spun off on the straight! I almost got the car back, but then I went off in a pretty bad place. The wet tires are very vulnerable, easy to aquaplaning. It obviously depends on the circuit and on many other things. But comparing to some years ago, those tires could handle this kind of water with no issues of aquaplaning.”
Maurizio Arrivabene:
“Maybe we could have achieved more, but no room for complaining now. Kimi’s accident was a shame. Seb had a great comeback after spinning off track. Now let’s focus onto Abu Dhabi. It’s the last race of the season but, as we always say, we’re not giving up till the end.”
